It is well known that food is cooked in prior art devices by using a fire and a rotisserie to cook food, such as chickens, hams, beef and fish, in such commercial establishments. These prior art devices use a housing in which a fireplace is provided and a multiplicity of spits are supported by a member that is rotated around an axle. So that the food is cooked uniformly, gears are used in these prior art devices to rotate each of the multiplicity of spits. However, since gears are costly to manufacture and maintain, this prior art cooking device is extremely expensive to make and service. Accordingly, only those commercial establishments with a large demand can justify the expense of this prior art device.
Further, fluid fuels, such as natural gas, propane gas, butane gas, oil or kerosene, are frequently used to provide a constant heat source in these prior art devices, but such fuels do not provide the flavor adding ingredients caused by solid fuels, such as provided when burning hickory wood or mesquite wood.
Further, when the food is being cooked in these prior art devices there is no apparatus so reclaim the juices that drip from the food for use in other food, such as sauces or gravies.
Further, these prior art devices use a spit that is relatively short to prevent the weight of the food from rendering the spit inoperative, which requires additional gearing to rotate the spits and increase expense of service and maintenance to keep the prior art devices in operating.
Further, the prior art devices are not able to cook over-sized food such as sides of beef or pigs.
Further, the prior art devices do not make use of the fire produced in the fireplace as efficiency as desired.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide cooking apparatus that uses a housing with a fireplace to support a fire for cooking food. A spit for supporting food is rotatably connected to the housing and receives heat generated from the fire in the fireplace. The spit may include at least three driven shoulders disposed substantially equidistant from one another around the periphery of the spit. Driving apparatus is connected to the housing for rotating the spit and has a drive member rotatably connected to the housing. The driving member may include at least four driving shoulders disposed substantially equidistant from one another to engage the driven shoulders on the spit so that the spit rotates more than one complete revolution every time the drive member is rotated.
Further, it is an object of the present invention to cooking apparatus that uses a housing, which includes a fireplace to support a fire for cooking food. A spit for supporting food is rotatably connected to the housing and disposed to receive heat generated from the fire in the fireplace. Driving apparatus is connected to the housing for rotating the spit and includes a reclamation trap disposed beneath the spit to recover the juices produced when cooking the food on the spit.
Further, it is an object of the present invention to provide cooking apparatus with fluid fuel burning apparatus for providing a fire fed by a fluid fuel in the fireplace to provide substantially constant heat to the food being cooked and solid fuel burning means for providing a fire fed by a flavor enhancing substance to provide a flavor to the food being cooked.
Further, it is an object of the present invention to provide cooking apparatus that is able to cook oversized food.
Further, it is an object of the present invention to provide cooking apparatus that make use of the fire produced in the fireplace more efficiently than prior art devices.